Six
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Lysander Scamander really isn't the type to believe six impossible things before breakfast. For a prompt set on the NextGen Fanatics forum.


There are people—big-eyed, green-thumbed, red-cheeked Lorcan comes to mind—who probably _could_ believe six impossible things before breakfast. But for all they're supposed to be identical, his twin brother is not one of them.

It's not that Lysander doesn't believe—his mother's genes see to that—or that he doesn't eat. But he doesn't believe something unless, deep down, it's really possible.

He believes that the place you should happen to be born shouldn't matter.

"Tell me again why we have to move our junk?"

"Because some diplomat from the British ministry has politics to do up here. Be nice, Lysander, this is Albus's cousin."

"Al? Al _Potter_?"

"Yeah, you've met her."

"But aren't they all, like..._grown up_?"

"Yes. She's a houseguest."

"Our _house_? _We're _only staying here for three more months anyway, can't she rent an apartment?"

"This way makes sense enough."

"Yeah, I notice you're not the one who has to haul all your books from room to room."

"Lysander, be civil."

"Oh, I can be civil, all right," he says with eyes raised. Barely twenty-four hours later it's "Hullo, Madam Weasley! How's your "giving advice to a ministry that doesn't really give a flobberworm's tail about you because you happen to come from west of here and a bit" going?"

His dad is cooking and doesn't hear him; Weasley just gives a thin smile. "I'm a diplomat. I do things...diplomatically."

"There's a surprise."

He believes in the Cannons.

Weasley gets the Sunday _Prophet_, usually on Monday through the Floo. Of course his mum recycles it, but he grabs the sports section every chance he can get. Mostly it's just seeing how bad the margin of defeat is, but one of these weeks their mercurial Seeker _will_ come through.

"Do you not follow a club up here?"

He shrugged. "I went to Ibestad when we were near...ish. But the Cannons are my _team_."

"But you're not from Chudley..."

"How many times do I have to explain, that's not what it's about! To be a _fan_."

She shrugs. "Sorry."

"You never go to Quidditch matches, do you?"

"Of course! Plenty of times."

"Just because someone's given you good seats next to some bigshots, though?"

"That's politics," she laughs. "It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it."

"You almost make it sound interesting."

"You keep listening to my boring days at work."

He shrugs. "What else am I going to do? Study for the runic certification?"

"It'd probably be a good use of your time."

"Whatever. I can cram."

He believes in letting Lorcan go first.

Lorcan's bulkier than his twin, and braver too. Though they never stuck around in one place long enough to go to Hogwarts or get Sorted, Lysander has the sinking feeling that Lorcan, seven minutes older and one place in the alphabet ahead, would have wound up in the house of the lions and he would be too shy to follow after.

So, when they go out to the shore and Lorcan talks Weasley into coming with, her work can wait, it's Lorcan who braves the plunge into the ocean, shivering but quickly forcing a smile.

"Come on, Lysander, it's boring by myself," he calls. His tongue lolling out, he experimentally picks up a pebble and gives it a magically-boosted skip, eight or nine bounces.

"Uh-huh. Sure it is," says Lysander. His mum is examining seashells while Weasley looks on, trying to pretend like she cares—his mum doesn't know any better but he can see through her by now.

"What are you going to do with shells?" Lorcan teases back. "Unless—" He yells back something else but has to jump as a wave sails through, and Lysander misses the rest of the sentence.

"What?"

"Nothing," Lorcan says unconvincingly, skipping another rock. That one has to go at least into the double-digits.

Lysander rolls his eyes. "Okay, I'm coming." But not before he glares at Weasley and says "You should come, it's not good for you to work all day."

He believes in equality.

Who doesn't, really? It's not something he has to spell out, it's something he can take for granted wherever he is. It hardly crosses his mind, that not that long ago there were real things to fight about. Until, two weeks before Weasley leaves, her parents come to visit.

Lorcan and her mum hit it off right away, and for the rest of the weekend his room smells funny and things seem to be exploding at odd hours. But it's her dad who Weasley really takes after; the same oval glasses, the same droning sentences, and even similar short cuts to their hair. He looks goofy, almost, with stilted nods from time to time and it makes Lysander wonder why she always looks so graceful.

When her dad starts talking to his mum in low, stilted, voices, and she murmurs back, Lysander goes out back. He knows what they're talking about and he's not really comfortable being the son of a war hero—this is his _mum_, who'd regard it as a travesty if some funny-looking insect she was looking at happened to be a casualty of his irritation.

What he doesn't expect is for Lucy to join him, maybe fifteen minutes later, looking pale and nervous. "I just needed to get out of the house," she whispers. "I can't—my dad_ never_ cries."

He believes in "God and all that."

The year before, they had lived in the Scottish Highlands, maybe fifteen minutes away from a small town where a young Muggle named Iona was, by far, top of her small class. He didn't mention everything, just that his parents studied animals and traveled a lot. She was smart and witty and very ticklish. He mocked her shoes, she mocked his hair, and what need did he have of magic? They were equal.

He doesn't remember what brought them to that point—they had been laughing and joking like normal, and he reached towards a strand of hair to yank, but she stiffened before he could get there. "You're not serious about that heaven stuff, are you?"

"Serious?" he shrugs. "I mean, I don't know for sure if there'll be, you know, harps and stuff."

"But you do believe in it?"

"Yeah. I mean, I haven't _been_, there, obviously, I don't _know_ in the same way, but...what?"

She looks through him, almost, with disdain. "I thought you were better than this. Deeper."

"What do you mean?" He tries to smile. "There are...plenty of layers to me I haven't shown you."

"You people are so...greedy. Everything we have here on Earth, you want all this and some heaven too."

"All of..." he trailed off. _What's so great? _he wanted to ask. _What's so fantastic about the planet where my mum watched her classmates get murdered, seventeen years old? About..._ He could have listed off a gross of inequities, from those he knew or those he wept to hear of, but if she was as argumentative as she suddenly seemed she would just spit them back in his face as "evidence" that God doesn't exist. "What. Are you fighting with me?"

"Am I fighting with you? You think this is about you?"

"Well what's it about?"

"I don't—I'm sick of living in a small town, if you're just some—backwoods—I've seen the clothes your brother wears, you _look_ like you're caught in the wrong millennium—"

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

"What's wrong with _me_? I'm sure you'd just love to tell me, wouldn't you, you and your—"

Their voices grew louder and more senseless, but when they broke apart his faith in the divine hadn't been shaken any. It was his faith in other people that waned. When you had your mirror image next to you all your life, everyone else was a letdown.

He believes he stands a chance with Lucy.

Though of course it's not till the end of her stay that he figures it out. She is little like Iona—she's too old, too professional, too demure for him to tease—but very early that last morning, he catches her alone.

"Er. Lucy," he stammers.

"Morning, Lysander," she smiles. "Looking forward to having your room back?"

"What? Oh. Well, you know we're leaving too, Dad's got a post in Australia for the next school year."

She nods, slowly. "Surely you'll be setting out when you come of age."

"Eventually. I'm looking into Muggle universities but—" Lorcan would have said something by now. "Look, I'm really going to miss you."

She pauses, eventually saying not "I'll miss you too" or "Send me an owl once in a while" but "There are Muggle universities in London, you know."

"Yeah," he says, excitedly, then catches his breath and remembers how painstakingly she works behind the scenes. "You didn't..."

"Didn't what?"

"Never mind. I mean, I—can I—" He places one of his hands over hers, and when her surprise seems more pleased than worried, rises to kiss her. At the last second, nervous, he aims for her cheek.

"Lysander," she laughs; he has already sat back down, nervous. "You understand this is not the best time to be starting a relationship?"

He raises his eyebrows. "So you'd be up for a relationship, then?"

She blushes. "And you say you're not a politician."

Lorcan enters the kitchen, blinking. "Lysander, she's leaving, so if you want to snog her you should get on it now."

"Way ahead of—how'd you know I fancied her?"

"Obvious, innit?"

"Obvious? Did _you_ know?" he says, blushing at Lucy.

"Had my suspicions."

"You two...since when?"

"Like two weeks ago," said Lorcan, as Lucy shrugs. "Maybe a week."

"A _week_? _I _didn't know a week ago!"

"Lysander!" Lorcan teases. "That's not how you win a lady's heart!"

"Yeah it is. Because I'm not being a creep about her—"

"—she lives _in your house_—"

"—I'm being polite! _Diplomatic_!" he finishes.

Lucy shakes her head. "I'll make a politician of you yet."

Lysander blinks. "You mean we can...try...this? Something?"

"We can try something," she repeats, and cuts him off before he can stammer his thanks. "If you're going to be in another hemisphere, you know, it won't be easy, but we can try."

"Okay," he grins. "Just—as long as you trust me, we'll work it out."

Lorcan just rolls his eyes and turns to make breakfast.


End file.
